Category: Spirit

There were actually a dozen or more all over the yard. Then came the sparrows and cardinals, even hummingbirds. It was like a fowlish stampede! I could only manage these few images, being full engaged in cooking dinner. It has been brutally hot this week, and I suppose this was their evening’s watering hole before turning in for the night.

Whenever I feel discouraged, which seems to be a lot these days, I go outside. Nature never changes its course. It doesn’t whine about the weather, but behaves accordingly. It doesn’t beg for attention because it is too busy trying to stay alive.

There is much comfort in watching bees going about their business or taking awhile to sleep in the folds of a blossom. Watching bird couples scout for food and then share what they find with each other speaks to cooperation and partnership better than any human interaction I have seen lately.

I can feel the trees breathing from where I sit, far beneath their branches; and I cringe to think how ignorant are those who can’t accept that we need their presence for the very oxygen that we enjoy. It’s not simply that we can’t all get up and run to a rally or pledge large sums of money to conservation efforts. The heartbreaking truth is that so many turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the fact that this world is dying beneath the crushing weight of our careless humanity.

It is the same philosophy that addresses the messes left in a grocery store or a discarded half full shopping cart. The “Oh they pay someone to do that,” theory to support apathy extends to global and political problems. The idea that “nature will take care of itself” or “we’ll leave that to the experts” is a copout of the worst kind. Will someone clean up behind you at WalMart? Most of the time. This issue is not about ‘someone’ fixing things. It is about the plague of disregard that is spreading its fingers insidiously over the world.

They are right about one thing. Nature will take care of itself. If Biblical history is to be believed, it once rained for forty days and forty nights to cleanse the planet. If Science is to be believed there have been other catastrophic weather purges since the dawn of time. Make no mistake. Earth will survive, and no matter how many guns you have stashed, no matter how many properties you own across the globe or how much money is stacked in the digital memory of your bank account, it will not save you from Nature’s unraveling.

Well, we started out with a bang and perhaps we shall end with one. Or maybe just a collective surprised whimper.

I love my little piece of Nature and will do whatever I can to preserve it. It think I’ll start by having a party..a garden party. Here are a few of my guests!

That, my friends, is a Bubba bird. He brings only the choicest berries to his mate and not just one but a mouthful! How do I know? I happen to be lucky enough to be cared for by the original Bubba Bird.

The truest love is not defined by the grand gestures of poets and kings, but rather rises in the heart and soul of selfless giving.